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Potential Impact of Unconventional Oil Resources on Major Oil-Producing Countries: Scenario Analysis with the ACEGES Model

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Abstract

The role of unconventional oil is increasing in global energy markets. Although conventional oil is being depleted, unconventional oil might manage or eliminate supply constraints in meeting the demand for oil without large positive step changes in the prices. In this study, we use the ACEGES model, which is agent-based, to explore the potential impact of unconventional oil on the evolution of the oil markets, focusing on four important oil-producing countries. We also use quantile sheets to summarize the simulation results. Given the estimated potential of conventional and unconventional resources, the results suggest that the production profiles will change tremendously. Although countries rich in conventional oil, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, will still occupy the global oil markets for approximately the first half of this century, oil production in countries with rich unconventional resources, such as Canada and Venezuela, will be higher in production than Saudi Arabia and Iran from 2050 to 2060. This change in production means that the market power in the global oil markets will shift from Middle Eastern countries to Canada and Venezuela in this century.

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Notes

  1. Brandt (2010) also reviews several types of modeling approaches for analyzing future oil production, including top-down and bottom-up models.

  2. Nonlinear diffusion of innovation models is a common counterpart of agent-based frameworks under a mean-field approximation [see Guseo and Guidolin (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014) and Guseo and Mortarino (2012)].

  3. The Walrasian Auctioneer aggregates the demands and supplies submitted by agents wishing to trade their assets in a market and then announces the first potential trading price (Bauwens and Giot 2001).

  4. It is not clearly stated in Voudouris et al. (2011), and only figures are shown.

  5. Note that it does not mean that the rate of exploiting the resources is stable, but it can depend on the amount of the remaining resources, and on technological, economic, political, and/or geological conditions.

  6. See also the depletion analysis by Höök (2014), which shows that peak of production is usually less than 50 % of the EUR.

  7. On the other hand, Tverberg (2012) discusses that the high oil price reduces oil demand and may cause a recession.

  8. For example, the survey by Hallock et al. (2004) shows 22.0–77.8 Gb/year (60.3–213.2 Mb/day) and that in Mohr (2010) shows 143–372 EJ/year (68.4–177.9 Mb/day). These studies do not show production by country.

  9. De Castro et al. (2009) assume that the variation of GDP depends on the variation in oil demand.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for partial financial support with JSPS KAKENHI 24710046.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science, The University of Shiga Prefecture, 2500 Hassaka, Hikone, Shiga, 522-8533, Japan

    Ken’ichi Matsumoto

  2. Research Centre for Energy Management, ESCP Europe Business School, 527 Finchley Road, London, NW3 7BG, UK

    Vlasios Voudouris

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  1. Ken’ichi Matsumoto
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Correspondence to Ken’ichi Matsumoto.

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Matsumoto, K., Voudouris, V. Potential Impact of Unconventional Oil Resources on Major Oil-Producing Countries: Scenario Analysis with the ACEGES Model. Nat Resour Res 24, 107–119 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-014-9246-8

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